A Visit to A&E

I have just spent most of the weekend in the A&E of my local hospital. It isn't the first time, unfortunately I am someone who gets far more than their money's worth from the NHS. I never cease to be grateful for the care & skill of medics. How they cope with the sheer volume & variety of patients & the working conditions continually amazes me. Morale & care seems surprisingly high considering what they have to put up with, so I would never criticise the people who actually work in the NHS.

I do think the system needs a serious overhaul though & have blogged about it before. If they were to follow patients journeys through the system I think they might see opportunities for improvement.

I don't need to bore you with the detail of the circumstances that sent me there, but I will tell you the progress through it. 

14.30 - medical incident -> phoned 111-> initial speedy triage (efficient) -> 2nd triage, same questions but much longer & very inefficient. Took about 45 minutes. Both my daughter & I found it very difficult to understand the person asking questions -> doctor eventually rang hours later -> told to go to out of hours appointment at 19.00 -> a wonderful, competent, GP who sent me to A&E with a printed copy of the notes she took of all the neurological tests she did -> A&E 20.15 receptist + nurse then waiting room -> 9 hours in various waiting areas in a chair! Eventually triaged, same questions, ECG, Bloods, Blood pressure. Doctor eventually, same questions & tests as previously & a CT scan. No one was very interested in the very good notes the out of hours GP had given me. Everyone wanted to go through the same tests & questions themselves & didn't seem to know what the outcome of the previous persons questions & tests were. Long gaps between every interaction with no information -> eventually discharged at about 05.15 next morning. 

I was utterly exhausted having had no sleep & in quite a bit of pain because sitting in really uncomfortable chairs triggers some of my normal health conditions. 

I can completely understand why everyone a patient sees has to ask name, DOB & address. They need to know they are treating the right person. 

What I simply don't understand is why so much time is apparently wasted answering exactly the same health & incident related questions & doing exactly the same neurological tests. Why don't medics have ipads to enter the information as they go & share it with everyone treating that patient? In fact, does a single patient really need to be seen by so many people?

Triage means the preliminary assessment of patients or casualties in order to determine the urgency of their need for treatment and the nature of treatment required.

If my condition had been more serious than it turned out to be I would possibly have been dead after the time that elapsed.

When I got home at about 06.00 next morning, after waiting for a taxi, I went to bed. The hospital apparently tried to phone me around 9.30 to call me back for another CT + angiogram. My phone was turned off, but fortunately I woke up at about 11.00 & my daughter got through in time to collect me & take me back.

I'm fine now. But at 79 with several chronic conditions that experience was very trying. 

I completely understand from far too much experience, as far as a patient can, the difficulties the NHS operates under, (apologies for the pun). I just think that one of the great failings of the system is effective communication & sharing of information. In this age of modern technology it is really not acceptable to be wasting so much time in repetition. The use of ipads might be expensive initially but they could also be linked to the whole NHS computer system & from that every surgery & hospital could access a patient history in real time.

There must be other ways technology could be used to make the system better for medics & patients.